Twenty staff quit Shropshire Council over new terms
Monday 3rd October 2011, 10:55AM BST.
Up to 20 staff have quit Shropshire Council after a pay cut and changes to their terms and conditions, it was claimed today by the branch secretary at Shropshire Unison Alan James.
He said the workers had decided to leave as a direct result of the changes brought in by the council.
But the union said the majority of the 6,500 staff affected had decided to carry on despite being unhappy at the way they have been treated and the hardship they will face.
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So no mass walk out as predicted by the comrades at Unison?
Shame really as the council could really have done with getting shot of the reds, but hey ho, we still saved 5% of the wages cost.
Where are your marches now? Mass picket lines?
That’s right: they’ve realised that holding on to a job during such troubling times is better than ending up on the dole just to give the union magnates their platform for spouting.
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That doesn’t put the council in the moral right, though.
It just means people have been forced into accepting reduction of their terms and conditions – and therefore living standards -through the threat of losing their jobs without recompense.
It’s called bullying.
That this brings you such obvious delight and satisfaction says more about you than any so called ‘union magnate’.
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As said the majority have been sensible , however i would hazard a guess those that have left were possibly part timers or housewife material who rely on hubby in order for them to posture..
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handed notice in today going to a new job in 4 weeks- and NO i was not part time or Housewife material with a Hubby
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What would you know about that Andrew? Does your hubby look after you?
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Well stone me, I got bumped on the head before and now I seem to have woken up in 1973.
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More like 1873!
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Oh Andrew, your wife is lucky to have you. What a sexist load of tosh.
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Oh jeremy we still have both in private/public the odd house wife who works part time just to get out, and for pocket money . The odd wrong word to them and they are off like a rat up a drain pipe.
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Calm Down Dear!
tut
women are so emotional!
I bet shes getting very ffrustrated by the debate
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And apparently we also still seem to have the odd sexist dinosaur spouting patronising cliches too…
Btw “The odd wrong word” is not how I would describe the way in which Shropshire Council’s employees have been treated recently.
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Oh Andrew, I rest my case.
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I find it easier to get through Andrew’s posts if you imagine him wearing a big pink hat and talking just like Barbara Windsor.
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Oh Helen hush now dear. Problem is you have a group of them so called sexist lot running the country now.
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Andrew, poppet,
Why don’t you switch off that newfangled computer thingy before your tea gets cold? Then I could pour us a lovely glass of Chianti and we can watch a bit of On The Buses together. If I get a bit confused you could explain the plot to me- you’re just so much better at understanding the complicated ways of the world than silly little old me!
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Better not let harriet harman hear that Andrew, me old chum :)
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Ref #1
Maybe the fight isn’t yet over? i hope your happy with your sarcasm….
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So this is progress is it….let’s watch while other local authorities follow suit, then private sector companies leapfrog down to even lower wages and conditions….ad infinitum
Andy and Andrew, I’m assuming you have a lot of money behind you or you’re naively thinking that there won’t now be a downward spiral of wages etc etc.
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tkg nothing to do with money etc but down to looking after ones self and not relying on a union who clearly are clueless and just releive you of money every month for what ? you are protected by the best workers rights laws in the world .
They THE UNION now say we are still looking to see if it is illegal at the start they said it was is this quoting employment law to its member’s with out any knowledge what so ever?
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Bye….thanks for coming….
…missing you already XXXX
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@Andy
Yes, much like someone confronted by a mugger realises it’s better to hand over their wallet when their assailant produces a knife.
It doesn’t mean the council’s actions are moral or right. Even legally it’s dubious.
But when there are mortgages to pay and kids to feed, people are reluctant to jeopardise their incomes, even if they are being treated unfairly.
It all depends who has the whip hand, you see.
It has nothing to do with not wanting to give branch secretaries a platform. These people voted for action.
Your confrontational, gloating tone betrays a suffocating smugness and a lack of empathy and compassion.
Sadly this is exactly the ‘devlovement of the axe’- ie the Tory government handing down lots of little axes to councils to do their dirty work, that was predicted before the election.
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‘Your confrontational, gloating tone betrays a suffocating smugness and a lack of empathy and compassion.’
That’s being kind. To me, it suggests either the bar-room boor or a man who’d get a kick out of still being the bigger, older kid in the playground humiliating all the smaller, younger ones.
Excellent posts Arthur, btw.
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Oh, I am so glad for the psychoanalysis, James.
Maybe not as much as Arthur is for your toadying, but grateful none-the-less.
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My my, if a one word approval for sb’s post is toadying, the internet’s full of toads.
I happen to disagree with those who say the council workers should have just shrugged and accepted their pay cuts, like turkeys shrugging and voting for Christmas, but at least some of the people who say such things do so in a way which shows they haven’t lost all respect for the rest of humanity.
Your posts, by contrast (and not just here) just seem so full of bile, bitterness and bluster ; it’s all ‘I’m the great God tax-payer’, ‘they’re all parasites’, ‘they need sacking’ etc etc. Apart from anything else, one would think you’ve never, or will never, need a public service in your life. If you ever do require, say, a nurse, local authority carer, an assistant for your kids etc etc, I hope you’ll be treated with all the care and professional respect those people have to give and that you in turn will think twice before spouting your pub bully-boy spiel again.
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Your reference to
“It has nothing to do with not wanting to give branch secretaries a platform.”
shows you to be the type of union troll that I find so abhorrent. Give branch secretaries a platform? How about the dog wagging the tail for a change and the branch secretaries actually trying to do some good for their members as opposed to for themselves and their political aspirations.
No better than politicians and certainly didnt do the working man any good during the tenure of the last government: your political lapdog, did you? So now, when the effects of the incompetence of YOUR cronies: Blair to a certain extent, (Thatchers greatest achievement?), but certainly Brown and Balls, affect your members you start crying foul: you and your union chums were silent when this was done to the private sector so dont expect sympathy when you have to deal with the exact same effects you happily stood by and allowed to happen to the rest of the country.
And am I to take it you are one of the twenty, Arthur? Or are you another union hypocrite: shouting and bullyign your members to do one thing but not having the gumption to stand by your holier than thou rhetoric?
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Hi again, Andy
I belong to a union but I’m not a union official.
The union I belong to is not affiliated to the Labour Party and does not financially contribute, so all your huff and puff about Brown and Balls being MY cronies is ,I’m afraid, utter nonsense.
Also, the union I belong to represents both public and private sector workers. So again, you’re wrong on that score.
Sympathy strikes or ‘secondary action’ was outlawed by your political heroine, Mrs Thatcher, so no good whingeing that public sector unions didn’t come out in support of their private setor counterparts. Mrs Thatcher made it illegal to do so – and you cheered that all the way, didn’t you?
Sadly, Labour seems to take union money and then make a point of kicking them to appease the right wing media.
I’m no hypocrite, I always take action when my union votes for action.
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Wow!
Lots of assumptions there, Arthur! And terribly off the mark I am afraid.
If Thatcher were my political heroine dont you think I might have been less critical of Blair?
The unions dont have to down tools and start rioting to SPEAK UP for what is right… whether it is regarding their members or the state of society in general. But I guess from your posts and specifically that last one that you are the type of “union man” who believes in direct action, crippling the country for kicks, and fighting the police to “man up”. Sadly the unions were completely silent while Brown destroyed the pensions industry… while I heard MANY public sector staff claiming “we are allright, we are on guaranteed schemes” in such a gloating, self satisfied and down right smug tone that yes, quite frankly, it does feel incredibly good to hear that their confidence was misplaced and they are going to have to make plans in the real world for their retirement and not live off my children and their taxes like parasites.
And dont say: “Labour seems to take union money and then make a point of kicking them to appease the right wing media.”
How many Labour MP’s have actually done an honest day’s work in their lives? Very few, and they are a dying breed. All are being replaced by privately educated numpties that probably only join the Labour party due to having a long running grudge from Oxford\Cambridge with someone who has joined the tories first.
Politicians, public sector “management”, unions, all as bad as estate agents or tabloid journalists: in it for themselves and dont give a damn about who they hurt to get what they want. Sad but true…
Who can honestly say that their MP is a creature of conscience? Not very many… Believe it or not I do think Thatcher was one: working for what she thought was best for the country, (please note the distinction of “what SHE thought”): no lining up multimillion pound consultancy business for her when she went. Benn was probably the best Labour example of what I am trying to define, but for all his faults I actually think Prescott also acted out of genuine belief. How about Balls? Where was he schooled again? So he will know all about the struggles of working families, wont he?
I still think it abhorrent that any free person will blindly follow union diktats… If your union called for you to break the law, you would? Thank goodness for Thatcher’s laws if there are still people who think that acceptible, and also thank goodness that the upper echelons of unions fear getting on the wrong side of the law – afetr all their big fat pay cheques wouldnt be much use in prison would they?
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good riddance to the lot of them i say, if they dont like it get out
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Global recession caused by the banks…public servants blamed and poorest hardest hit.
A 0.5% bank tax on transactions would generate £20bn in one year alone and help out society. Yet the govt doesn’t agree with it. 51% of their funding comes from the City….
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Ingorance of the highest order.
A transaction tax would be the final nail in the coffin as all of the financial sector abandon ship: and dont say it wouldnt happen because it has already started…
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It’s a shame that the staff were put into this position in the first place. However, a job is a job is a job, and that is what the Council were relying on. The hardest hit households would be husband and wives who both work there, but any loss of income in this day and age is difficult to cope with for anyone.
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those people who walked out will not be able to get a job and will not be able to claim benefit because they have ‘sacked’ on their cv
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I cant get my head around this, these workers did nothing wrong and did not break their contracts of employment, they simply did not reapply for their jobs at worse conditions after being sacked, in other words they took the council at its word. So I do not see that they should suffer in the job market for their refusal to be bullied. In fact I would like to see some test cases in employment tribunals to test the legality of the councils actions.
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Council 1
Union 0
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This means people’s ability to pay their bills, put food on the table etc will be significantly affected.
It also means that they’ll have less money to spend in the local economy, and will have a knock on effect.
What’s to celebrate?
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I bet your Union fees didnt decrease did they Arthur?
How about Unison showing some compassion and reducing their union dues? No? Oh I forgot you dont like it publicised that the unions are just as trough-ready as westminster and the city.
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I’m not a member of Unison
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Hi Andrew, the majority have had to be sensible, unfortunately many of us are not part time or being supported by husbands, some of us are the sole wage earners and have no choice but to accept the new conditions as we have families which are relying on us and mortgages which need paying.
I also think its worth noting that we are not just unhappy about the wage decrease but the changes to our overall terms and conditions such as sick pay etc.
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I don’t see how this can be a source of disagreement. Surely people giving up their jobs rather than taking a pay cut is something we should ALL think is undesirable. Is giving in to threats joining the ‘real world’? The ‘real world’ is what we make it. If we always give in, then we make it a place where the powerful or pushy win. If we take a stand, we might make it a place where they sometimes fail. I know which reality I prefer.
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Good luck to the twenty that have chanced their arm by leaving, they will see that the grass on their former side of the fence is far greener than this side, that is the main reason I would suggest that there is little in the way of sympathy for public sector workers especially when levels of salary and fringe benefits in the form of pensions are taken into consideration.
It’s a tough old world out here in non-government land.
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i reckon they will be better off actually – private sector is better run, better organised, bonuses to motivate, better training etc, I havent looked back since a breif spell in the civil service graduate programme in the 80′s lead me know where, I now run a large department at a FTSE100 firm with a team of motivated well trained staff and we are all on a good pension, mind you we work damn hard for it
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Jeff,
How long did you work in the public sector for in your career? Given that you’re such an expert in making comparisons between public and private I’m assuming you must have worked in both…
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they can afford it they get mega bucks at the council, mostly for basic office jobs which require no degrees or anything, AND they get a massive pension
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Please give an example of the ‘mega-bucks’ being paid out and evidence of why this is out of proportion to the value of the work undertaken.
Do you know how much the average pension is for local authority workers?
Or are you just trolling?
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Amanda,
Where is your evidence for these ridiculous claims?
‘No degrees or anything’. Are you really suggesting that office jobs in the public sector can be obtained with no academic qualifications whatsoever? And if there really are ‘mega bucks’ and ‘massive pensions’ available – why haven’t you applied?
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Hello again Andy,
I’m afraid ’tis you making assumptions my excitable chum.
How on earth have you managed to infer from my comments that I like fighting with the police and rioting?
Please quote the comment which would lead you to such an opinion.
My union can’t tell me to do anything. A union can ballot its members on a course of action (whether to take industrial action, for example), it can’t ballot its members on taking illegal action as – quelle surprise – that would be illegal.
If I vote to take strike action, I take strike action. I don’t vote one way and act another. So no hypocrisy, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Of course strike action should be a last resort, but if you think there’s a suitably effective alternative, I’d be all ears.
When did the last union ‘riot’ as you say?
I don’t recall any unions rioting. Please give an example.
And please can you attribute a source to the union officials / spokespeople who said ‘we’re all right, we’re on guaranteed schemes’. Please bear in mind unions – including mine – represent public and private sector workers.
Sadly some workers have suffered because they did not unionise and defend their rights.
‘The unions’ are not some outside force that arrives to fight a dispute. Workers have to organise and form their own unions to represent their interests.
Private companies taking contribution holidays, private pensions being mis-sold have all contributed to the disaster zone in private sector pensions. The effect Brown had is overstated for political reasons. The tax relief was moved from pensions to fund a cut in corporation tax.
As for your other ramblings on the Labour party – I don’t support the Labour Party, my union is not affiliated, I do not vote for or give money to Labour!
What has where Labour ministers went to school got to do with my comment that the Labour Party take union money, but kick them to appease the right wing press? Seems like a non-sequitur to me.
Sorry if I’ve assumed you supported Thatcher’s anti-union laws – which include outlawing sympathy strikes – was I wrong?
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I wish our Conservative councillors would get as passionate and robust about saving village schools which they promised not to close as they would about hurting trade unions and cutting the pay of our public cleaners, teachers, bin men etc
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what bin men? what cleaners?
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see ya later alligators
if they dont like working in a comfortable air conditioned officer 9 to 5 with an hour for lunch and no pressure to deliver or even bring in any income or do anything socially useful at all
Well then go and work in the private sector and see what its like for us
They wouldnt last 5 minutes in a proper job
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All of which begs the obvious question, Jog On, why didn’t YOU choose to work in the public sector if it’s so good?
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Because you can only get a job in the public sector if you went to the right school, know the right people and belong to a suitable minority group.
(Just helping Jog On come up with some excuses, I’m sure he can come up with even more imaginative ones).
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Right school? Right people? It’s a local council, not the Victorian Foreign Office. What are these ‘right schools’? Eton? Harrow? Hardly well-known suppliers of local council workers. And does Shropshire CC employ many minority staff? Instead of ‘right school’ how about ‘right education’. Maybe the minority group you refer to is that of sufficiently educated and qualified people.
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What planet do you live on Kath? The planet chip perhaps.
What do you mean by “the public sector”? Teachers, inland revenue call centre staff, cleaners, bin men, Kim Ryley, care workers, social workers, library assistants, gardeners, drivers, administrative assistants…..each and every one of them only got their job because they went to the right school, knew the right people and belong to a minority group?
My parents had no money at all and no contacts within Shropshire Council. I am not from a minority group. I went to Adams School, Wem. I went to college etc. and when I moved back to Shropshire I got a job for Shropshire Council and then Telford & Wekin Council.
From there I moved to a job in the private sector which I secured by a combination of “networking” – no interview process, no other applicants, my face fit and that was that – paid much, much more (pension contributions and more covered thank you very much) than I ever got in the public sector with generous performance related bonuses and holidays and great working conditions.
As twiggo says, you cannot generalise.
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sorry kath, missed the irony
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‘Jog on’ , you say council workers have “No pressure to deliver or even bring in any income or do anything socially useful at all”
How did you arrive at this opinion. Have you closely observed and studied council workers going about their jobs?
And, as an aside, the lenght of time a worker takes for lunch is irrelevant – they still have to make up their contracted hours.
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It’s so easy to generalise. Public sector bad, private sector good and hard done by.
My husband is a council worker – he earns bang on the average wage (less than he would in the private sector for the same job) and brings in about £100,000 in fees each year. The hours he works and conditions he enjoys don’t bare much resemblance to those that you refer to.
And in terms of socially useful – enabling elderly and disabled people to live in their own homes for longer …..I rest my case…..
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And what socially useful role are you employed in Jog on? Passing judgement from behind the safety of your keyboard is great isn’t it?
I wonder if you’ve ever been directly responsible for managing life threatening incidents and dealing with the public in their hour of need.
Perhaps you care for vulnerable young, elderly or sick people. Do you per chance make a very real difference to some of the disadvantaged in our society in your day to day responsibilities?
Nine to five with an hour for lunch? Try before 7 to beyond five with little or no lunch, or twelve days continuous in a row.
Air conditioned offices you say? Probably in some cases as with many private employers’ premises, but not where I work.
Daily Mail swallowing trolls – if you can’t think of anything to post which is based on fact, then please don’t bother. You’re just sadly demonstrating your own ignorance
I wonder whether you’d last five minutes in a so called proper job.
Good night – sweet dreams!
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Amazing and disgusting!
This issue has been rolling on for most of the year and not only in Shropshire.
The Unions have still not got to grips with the legality of this firing and hiring issue.
If it IS legal, what is there to stop employers from offering 50% pay cuts, zero holiday entitlement and no sick pay in a “revised terms and conditions package”?
Redundancy laws appear to have become redundant!
PS what does a NALGO employee have to do to find a massive pension? Membership years up to 2008 (ish) only earned a 50% pension where most final salary schemes generate 66%.
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Nice one Andy. Let’s get rid of the dirty reds. In fact, let’s close all the council down. Let anyone who can’t look after themselves get on with it. Let’s shut down the hospitals too. If anyone gets ill or has an accident let them sort their own injuries out rather than waste taxpayers money on them. Survival of the fittest … you know it’s right. At least the community centres are being shut down. Phew. And youth clubs. Excellent. Schools are a waste of time too. If you can’t educate your kids yourself then you’re of no use to anyone. Privatise privatise .. exterminate exterminate …
Nurse … my medication’s wearing off …
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Good. Less taxes then please. They will not be missed but we will not be discounted their wages off our council tax either, it all goes in the pockets of the councillors
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Can’t help but think Andy might not be happier living with a community that suits his views better than his fellow Salopians. Shame the American West has already been won, South Africa has turned its back on apartheid, Libya has embraced democracy. Oh..Andy! Andy! The Taliban! You’d love them!
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Okay, so 20 ish people decided to not take the new plan so were made redundant? Wouldn’t these people get some sort of redundancy money of some kind?
If they cannot find jobs they would have to draw benefits which may possibly mean that they would get their council tax paid? I would guess that these 20 people had to leave as they could not afford to work for less and they were possibly on the lower pay bands.
What I mean is, what’s the difference, get paid to pay the rent / council tax working for the council or get the rent / council tax paid by the council to sit at home having a better quality of life than working at the council.
At the end of the day the public sector is kicking out the lower paid people in the masses while they keep the dead wood managers who earn over their stations. This is pushing the uk into poverty as there are no jobs out there. Its the old saying the rich are getting richer and you guessed it the poor getting well stuffed!
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Soapbox John – the 20 people “chose” to leave so no they will not get redundancy, nor unemployment benefits for 6 months. Quite a gesture, I would say and good on them.
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